It is not often that we get the chance to support a cause and see amazingly successful results in the span of a few short weeks. But, that is exactly what happened when I encountered the talented and lively Flutronix music duo from New York. Flutronix is described as an “impressive timbral coordination of acoustic flute with the inherent polish of synthetic sounds.” Doyle Armbrust -Time Out Chicago.

I discovered the duo through a Facebook link from my Atlanta singer/songwriter friend, Doria Roberts, who had performed with Flutronix at the Living Room in NYC in October of this year. I have a personal passion for live acoustic music having founded a live music coffee house in Philadelphia in the late 90s. When I first saw their lovely faces and then heard their creative mixture of flute and synthesizer I was hooked. I decided to download one of their digital CDs and discovered they were running a fundraising “Kickstarter.com” campaign to fund the production of their second album. Instead of just purchasing the CD I resolved to fund their project for $25 knowing that I would get their new CD in return should their project be successful. Helping live music thrive and receiving a digital download in return made supporting their cause an easy decision.

As I began occasionally seeing the group’s Kickstarter updates in my Facebook newsfeed it became evident that they were passionate about their project and determined to see it succeed. Their Kickstarter campaign officially began on Nov. 8th and had a deadline of December 8th. I funded the project with my meager $25, on November 21st about two weeks before the campaign deadline. On Dec. 4th, with five days left, they shared a post with their followers stating that they had just reached the halfway point in funding. Feeling a bit more than nervous for their success, and being a professional internet advertiser, I reached out to them on their Facebook page and asked if they had used the ‘promote a post’ ad feature that is available to anyone on Facebook. They indicated that they had tried it once and may try it again. I followed up with a question about the use of a targeted ad campaign in a private message.

They had not ever used Facebook’s more advanced ad campaign options so I offered to set it up and fund it myself knowing that it would be a much better use of limited funds since they still had $10,000 to raise! I sent them information from Facebook on the various admin roles that can be assigned to page managers and also sent directions on how to assign me as an ‘advertiser’ on their page. Since they didn’t “know me from Adam” it was definitely a leap of faith for them to allow me access to their professional Facebook page in the midst of the final countdown to their impending Kickstarter finale! As grace would have it, they readily gave me access and trusted that I wouldn’t bring their Facebook page crashing to a halt.

Since time was of the essence and with only 3 days to the deadline, I opted to create just two Facebook ads. The first ad was targeted to a large potential audience of people with flute-related keywords on their Facebook pages. The total potential reach of this first group was about 176,000 people in the U.S. In the 48 hours that this ad was scheduled to run 55,000 people were shown the ad and 158 people clicked through to the Flutronix Kickstarter campaign page.

The second ad was targeted at friends who were already connected to the Flutronix Facebook page, i.e. ‘friends of friends.’ This type of ad was chosen since the ad would show all who saw it that one or more of their own friends had already liked the Flutronix page. This strategy is a great way to leverage the power of social influence in advertising.

In the final 72 hours of the Kickstarter campaign the Flutronix duo closed the gap and successfully raised the $20,000.00 needed to fund their sophomore album! The total two-day Facebook ad budget spent was just $110.00. This Kickstarter and Facebook Ad Campaign story is truly a holiday success story!

Stay tuned for the next article where I will share the detailed ad design and results information.

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About Brian Loebig

Owner of LoebigInk.com, author of TheInkBlog.net, CriminalThinking.net and part-time Technology Manager for the Alliance for Performance Excellence, Brian has over 15 years of experience working in the quality improvement, human services and technology fields as an administrator and consultant. Brian has also worked as a practitioner and administrator in the corrections, substance abuse and human services fields with a special emphasis on technology. He continues to work with numerous community-based non-profits as a web technology consultant, board member and volunteer. Feel free to connect with me on Google +.